The Driehaus Prize

Classical architecture and traditional urbanism represent a cultures highest aspirations. Today the timeless ideals that have endured for centuries have become even more essential as a means to preserve our contemporary way of life. Beauty, harmony and context are hallmarks of classical architecture, thus fostering communities, enhancing the quality of our shared environment and developing sustainable solutions through traditional materials, says Richard H. Driehaus, the Chicago philanthropist who has established the $200,000 Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture to honor a major contributor to the field. The Driehaus Prize has been presented annually since 2003 to a living architect whose work embodies the principles of traditional and classical architecture and urbanism in contemporary society, and creates a positive cultural, environmental, and artistic impact.

Past winners include Léon Krier, Demetri Porphyrios, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Andrés Duany, and Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil. Their work spans cultures and continents, but it is all part of a continuum that connects communities and sustains the social fabric that ties us all together. As Richard H. Driehaus says: Within the bodies of work of the Driehaus Prize winners, these ideas form an even larger and more important truth about the human experience  that the growth of a culture or community does not need to happen at the expense of its history and established value.